I sit and I read the news as the events unfold
in Iraq it is becoming increasingly clear that Bush is royally screwed
from
here on out. He underestimated the fact
that no one on the right possesses any kind of foresight when it comes
to foreign
policy—after all, it was his very advisors, when
they worked for Reagan, that built up and supported characters like Saddam
and bin Laden in the first place by giving them
billions of dollars and gobs of weapons—they thought it was a good idea!
So, when the oh-so-wise advisors (side note: remember
during the election when people brought up the fact that Bush was
not very intelligent and that he showed little
to no intellectual curiosity his defenders quickly noted that he would
surround
himself with “smart people”? Ha!) informed
him that they did not exactly have any evidence proving that Saddam possessed
the much desired weapons of mass destruction
but that they were certain that if we invaded Iraq the WMDs would no doubt
turn up.
Until then, making up evidence or just using
evidence that pre-dated Clinton’s Desert Fox operation in ’98 would have
to due to
build support for the needed war.
So we invaded Iraq with a very small force of
about 200,000 troops when the first gulf war had a force of about 600,000
(and involved no invading what-so-ever) all-the-while
experts outside the Pentagon warned that we would need a much larger
force to occupy the country. In the meantime
“experts” inside the Pentagon said that we had more than enough troops
because
we are a “modern” military. Now we have
130,000 troops stationed in Iraq as an occupying force—that number has
dropped
by about 50 so far this week—and Rumsfeld has
miraculously changed his tune and now says that if the generals request
it,
he would be more than happy to send more troops
to Iraq. Only now, if we boost our troop presence in Iraq there is
going to
be an inevitable air of Vietnam, circa 1968 post-Tet-offensive,
when after we thought we had all but won the war (remember the
“Mission Accomplished” banner on the USS Abraham
Lincoln… 506 troops have died since then when “major combat” was
declared “over”) we had not. AS Rumsfeld
so quaintly put it in an internal Pentagon memo months back, we have entered
the “…
long hard slog” he considered but waived away;
he’s not the one fighting!
One thing that puzzles me is that if we have approximately
2,000,000 active duty military personnel in the US armed forces then
why are we calling up all of the National Guardsmen
and Reservists to fight this war? I have several friends in various
branches
of the military that do nothing but train 10
hours a day. What, exactly, are they training for? Instead
we are sending bankers and
college students who do some pushups and run
through some drills every 4th weekend and for two weeks a year. These
people
are supposed to be our last line of defense why
are they, all-of-a-sudden, our first line of offense? Isn’t that
the whole reason why
Bush joined the National Guard when he was my
age, because he did not want to be the one fighting?
I now look to left and see everyone with their
arms crossed, shaking their heads mumbling, “I told you so” and I look
to the right
and see everyone with a panicked, bewildered
look in their eyes, pleading, “give us a few more months and I can assure
you we
will find the weapons of mass destruction.”
Isn’t that what the left said about inspections before the war? Give
the inspectors
more time? What was Bush’s answer?
Bomb’s away!
Bush and company are not ones to learn from the
sins of the father. When Bush the Elder’s State Department received
a letter
in April of 1990 from Saddam Hussein’s government
asking if we would mind if they invaded Kuwait Bush replied that we have
no interest as to what goes on in the Middle
East. He lied. He just wanted an excuse to showcase our new
weapons and the
American military’s awesome might on the world-stage
and the invasion of Kuwait was the perfect one. It still couldn’t
win him
re-election though. Fast-forward to August
2002 and what do you find? Well, other than Bush the Younger taking
yet another
month-long vacation at his ranch—we have him
now using 9-11 as an excuse to invade Iraq so that he can showcase our
new
weapons and our awesome might to the world (and
to get the exclusive contracts to one of the largest oil producing nations
in
the world). Again, it is not going to win
him re-election but maybe a cushy job at Carlyle like his daddy.
Can’t say we didn’t warn him. Even those
on the left that conceded the possibility to there still being WMDs in
Iraq thought it
was a bad idea to invade while we were/are still
fighting the real war on terrorism in Afghanistan (remember that place?
You know, where Osama bin Laden is and those
responsible for actual terrorist plots and actions against the US?).
Oh yes, Afghanistan. We have a whopping
30,000 troops there to continue the fight and search for Osama bin (“dead
or alive”)
Laden in a country of 25,000,000 people of which
we control very little of the outside of Kabul. Warlords still rule
supreme in
the North and the Taliban still holds substantial
territory in the south. In Kabul Afghanistan’s President cannot dare
to leave the
executive office because he would most certainly
be killed. What are we doing about it? Losing soldiers in Iraq.